“Nobody ever wins in a fight.” – Patrick Swayze, Road House (1989)
In our gluttonous era of franchise reboots, prequels, sequels, and more, I must admit the shot-for-shot remake is my least favorite. Unfortunately, this busy dad couldn’t make it to the silver screen this month, so I scraped the bottom of the Amazon Prime barrel and came up with Road House (2024), a straight-to-streaming joint directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) and starring an absolutely shredded Jake Gyllenhaal, who at this point may be most famous as the subject of much denigration in the 10 minute version of Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well.”
Of course, in order to watch the remake, I needed to watch the original Road House (1989), an action-comedy (?) classic which is so culturally pervasive that I was already familiar with many of its references and story beats, despite embarrassingly never actually having seen the film. After watching, I find myself asking: Is this the best “bad” action movie ever made?
They say that movie studio executives were doing entirely too much cocaine in the 1980s, and this movie is proof. Swayze plays it straight as the legendary philosopher-bouncer Dalton, who is hired to clean up The Double Deuce, a rowdy roadhouse in small town Missouri. The sincerity of Swayze’s line delivery transforms what is a fundamentally unserious premise and a sophomoric B-movie script into a truly memorable movie experience. With his pleated plants billowing in the wind, he tai-chis his way through brawl after brawl, getting the attention of a sinister crime boss with an iron grip on the town. It’s really all you can ask for from a Friday night romp. You won’t leave edified in any way, but you will surely be entertained.
The music and wardrobe are dated but have aged well. The set pieces are all practical, and there’s really nothing better than an authentic 80s action explosion. The supporting cast are all just as good as Swayze. For starters, Sam Elliott is here! Ben Gazzara oozes greed as the cartoonishly evil villain, Brad Wesley. Then there’s Marshall Teague’s Jimmy, a sort of Bizarro-world foil for Swayze’s hero, who delivers some of the most insane line-readings ever committed to film, the most famous of which I absolutely cannot put in print in a family-friendly newsletter.
As for the remake, the less I say the better. Here’s the thing about guilty pleasures: they’re supposed to be pleasurable. Whether intentionally or not, the 1989 Road House is hilarious. It’s unclear whether the preposterous stunts and cheesy one-liners peppered throughout its 2-hour runtime were part of a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek, almost campy vision from the filmmakers, but it worked. The 2024 version, on the other hand, completely lacks that charm and energy. The fighting might be better choreographed and the Florida Keys setting a bit prettier, but the script is just as underdeveloped, and this time the leads can’t quite carry it through. It’s a perfectly serviceable remake, but it doesn’t bring anything new to the table.
Road House (1989): 3.5/5 Stars
Road House (2024): 2/5 Stars